Home again, home again, jiggety jog
Jul. 25th, 2008 12:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
todayiamadaisyI've just seen a person-sized roll of bubble wrap in the photocopier room! Who wants to wrap me in it and roll me down the stairs? Pop, pop, pop!
That would certainly wake me up. I'm not normally a bleary-in-the-morning person, but I had a long day yesterday. A good day, but long. My mother and some of her friends from work have an unofficial little quilters' club, and every year they gather together friends and family to go to the Melbourne Craft Fair on a group discount. I was in two minds about going this year; the first year I went was great - it was all so new and so exciting with so much to take in - but I've been a few times now and I don't think I could take a whole day of it. So I said that I'd go for half a day, then find something else to do and meet them back at the train station later. My mother surprised me by being quite keen on that idea; not just for me, that is, but for her as well. Her friends are semi-professional quilters (one of them makes a quilt a week!), so they get a lot out of the Craft Fair; she, on the other hand, is an enthusiastic dabbler. And then it turned out that the National Gallery has a big Art Deco exhibition on, so the problem of what to do with the other half-day was solved.
So I had to get up at an unreasonably early hour to catch the morning train to Melbourne. I don't know about you, but when I know I have to get up unusually early, I can never sleep soundly. I woke up at three and stayed awake until the alarm went off at four-fifteen. That's so early that I was up before Miss Pink, which never happens; when I turned the kitchen light on, I could see her on the living room sofa, curled protectively round her heat pack like Smaug the dragon, eyes shining yellow in the dark.
The good thing about trains, though, is that one can sleep on them, so I was slightly better rested when we reached Melbourne just after nine. The others went off the the Craft Fair, while my mother and I meandered along, stopping at a café for Second Breakfast, then Haigh's Chocolates for A Little Something To Eat On The Way Home. I was very taken with the chocolate cod, but then I decided that it was, after all, just a block of chocolate shaped like a fish, so I bought some dark chocolate almonds instead. Mum bought some chocolate aniseed rings, thereby guaranteeing that she wouldn't have to share them. Vile, vile aniseed.
We also passed St Paul's Cathedral, which was surrounded by a crowd of important-looking people (including the unlamented former prime minister, John Howard) and a convoy of official vehicles. My mother worked it out first (I say "first", but in all honesty, I would never have guessed this): the state funeral for former Victorian premier, Lindsay Thompson. She told me: "When I was a trainee (nurse), Matron Stewart came into the nurses' home one evening and said, 'Right girls, who's not doing anything tonight? Come out with me!' So a few of us went with her to the Town Hall for a political meeting. We were seventeen, so you can imagine how boring we thought it was. Then Lindsay Thompson, I don't think he was the premier at that stage, but he was pretty important, stood up to speak and Stewie started to shout at him about nurses being underpaid and we were so embarrassed. And The Standard took her photo and the front page the next day was 'NURSES HECKLE THOMPSON ABOUT PAY' and I was in the photo, and when I went home that weekend your grandmother was so cross because she liked Lindsay Thompson." My mother, the political activist.
The Art Deco exhibition was fantastic; it was based on one done by the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, with added Australian content. We hired an audio guide each, which were on iPods, and I watched in amazement as my mother (a) listened attentively to the guy explaining how to use it and (b) proceeded to use it with no problems whatsoever. Why can't she do that when I explain new technology? During our end-of-exhibition game of What Would You Steal?, Mum decided that she would steal a big embroidered panel of gold cranes (the birds, not the heavy machinery), while I decided that I would steal the foyer from The Strand hotel. "You couldn't fit that in a bag to sneak out past security," Mum pointed out. "You couldn't even fit it on the train." Undeniably true, so I decided that I would steal a Lalique lampshade with two peacocks etched into it instead.
Then a stroll along the river, where we passed an old homeless lady sitting in the sun and singing to herself in a high, sweet voice like a mermaid; a picnic lunch; and then to the Craft Fair. Mum went off to some quilting workshops and I wandered about. I found a shop selling Colinette Giotto, the very stuff I knitted that scarf out of a few weeks ago. What a hassle it was to find, and yet here it was now, great hanks of it just waiting to be bought. Sigh. I wanted to sit down for a bit, so I went to a workshop on felting wool roving. The woman taught us how to shape felting, so we could felt a fitted jacket. I bought some of the roving with the less ambitious aim of felting a square blanket for Miss Pink. I also bought a big square bead thing from a Japanese bead shop; I've just realised that it has a daisy on it. I mean, I knew it had daisy on it, but I wasn't thinking of my LiveJournal user name when I bought it. Oh, and I bought a couple of pieces of fabric for the black and white quilt I'm making. Well, I'm not making it, because I can't use a sewing machine; I'm embroidering (slowly) some little pictures for it though. I also got, though I didn't actually buy this, a sore toe. Then I bumped into a couple of the other women from the train, so we went and looked at the prize-winning quilt exhibition together.
On the train again, we all compared purchases. My mother bought a book called Wickelstiche, which was in German, a language she can't speak at all, but the instructional pictures in it would seem to be universal. The train trip home is always good; full at Southern Cross station, the carriage slowly empties out at each stop - Lara, North Geelong, Geelong, South Geelong, Marshall, Winchelsea, Birregurra, Colac, Camperdown and Terang - so by the last hour to Warrnambool, there are only a handful of sleepy people left. I did all but two clues of the cryptic crossword.
Such an odd day: get up too early, sit too long, walk around for too long, then sit too long to get home again. Back home well after ten, I was met by an irate pink cat sitting next to an empty food bowl, even though I had put extra food down for the day. Finally, I sat down on the sofa next to Miss Pink, now fed and happily curled round her re-warmed heat pack, and poked my sore toe. Some pus popped out from under the toe nail.
So that was my day.
Finally, if you were to head to the rather excellent cover song blog, Fong Songs, you would find a week's worth of posts of Muppet covers. And who wouldn't want that?
That would certainly wake me up. I'm not normally a bleary-in-the-morning person, but I had a long day yesterday. A good day, but long. My mother and some of her friends from work have an unofficial little quilters' club, and every year they gather together friends and family to go to the Melbourne Craft Fair on a group discount. I was in two minds about going this year; the first year I went was great - it was all so new and so exciting with so much to take in - but I've been a few times now and I don't think I could take a whole day of it. So I said that I'd go for half a day, then find something else to do and meet them back at the train station later. My mother surprised me by being quite keen on that idea; not just for me, that is, but for her as well. Her friends are semi-professional quilters (one of them makes a quilt a week!), so they get a lot out of the Craft Fair; she, on the other hand, is an enthusiastic dabbler. And then it turned out that the National Gallery has a big Art Deco exhibition on, so the problem of what to do with the other half-day was solved.
So I had to get up at an unreasonably early hour to catch the morning train to Melbourne. I don't know about you, but when I know I have to get up unusually early, I can never sleep soundly. I woke up at three and stayed awake until the alarm went off at four-fifteen. That's so early that I was up before Miss Pink, which never happens; when I turned the kitchen light on, I could see her on the living room sofa, curled protectively round her heat pack like Smaug the dragon, eyes shining yellow in the dark.
The good thing about trains, though, is that one can sleep on them, so I was slightly better rested when we reached Melbourne just after nine. The others went off the the Craft Fair, while my mother and I meandered along, stopping at a café for Second Breakfast, then Haigh's Chocolates for A Little Something To Eat On The Way Home. I was very taken with the chocolate cod, but then I decided that it was, after all, just a block of chocolate shaped like a fish, so I bought some dark chocolate almonds instead. Mum bought some chocolate aniseed rings, thereby guaranteeing that she wouldn't have to share them. Vile, vile aniseed.
We also passed St Paul's Cathedral, which was surrounded by a crowd of important-looking people (including the unlamented former prime minister, John Howard) and a convoy of official vehicles. My mother worked it out first (I say "first", but in all honesty, I would never have guessed this): the state funeral for former Victorian premier, Lindsay Thompson. She told me: "When I was a trainee (nurse), Matron Stewart came into the nurses' home one evening and said, 'Right girls, who's not doing anything tonight? Come out with me!' So a few of us went with her to the Town Hall for a political meeting. We were seventeen, so you can imagine how boring we thought it was. Then Lindsay Thompson, I don't think he was the premier at that stage, but he was pretty important, stood up to speak and Stewie started to shout at him about nurses being underpaid and we were so embarrassed. And The Standard took her photo and the front page the next day was 'NURSES HECKLE THOMPSON ABOUT PAY' and I was in the photo, and when I went home that weekend your grandmother was so cross because she liked Lindsay Thompson." My mother, the political activist.
The Art Deco exhibition was fantastic; it was based on one done by the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, with added Australian content. We hired an audio guide each, which were on iPods, and I watched in amazement as my mother (a) listened attentively to the guy explaining how to use it and (b) proceeded to use it with no problems whatsoever. Why can't she do that when I explain new technology? During our end-of-exhibition game of What Would You Steal?, Mum decided that she would steal a big embroidered panel of gold cranes (the birds, not the heavy machinery), while I decided that I would steal the foyer from The Strand hotel. "You couldn't fit that in a bag to sneak out past security," Mum pointed out. "You couldn't even fit it on the train." Undeniably true, so I decided that I would steal a Lalique lampshade with two peacocks etched into it instead.
Then a stroll along the river, where we passed an old homeless lady sitting in the sun and singing to herself in a high, sweet voice like a mermaid; a picnic lunch; and then to the Craft Fair. Mum went off to some quilting workshops and I wandered about. I found a shop selling Colinette Giotto, the very stuff I knitted that scarf out of a few weeks ago. What a hassle it was to find, and yet here it was now, great hanks of it just waiting to be bought. Sigh. I wanted to sit down for a bit, so I went to a workshop on felting wool roving. The woman taught us how to shape felting, so we could felt a fitted jacket. I bought some of the roving with the less ambitious aim of felting a square blanket for Miss Pink. I also bought a big square bead thing from a Japanese bead shop; I've just realised that it has a daisy on it. I mean, I knew it had daisy on it, but I wasn't thinking of my LiveJournal user name when I bought it. Oh, and I bought a couple of pieces of fabric for the black and white quilt I'm making. Well, I'm not making it, because I can't use a sewing machine; I'm embroidering (slowly) some little pictures for it though. I also got, though I didn't actually buy this, a sore toe. Then I bumped into a couple of the other women from the train, so we went and looked at the prize-winning quilt exhibition together.
On the train again, we all compared purchases. My mother bought a book called Wickelstiche, which was in German, a language she can't speak at all, but the instructional pictures in it would seem to be universal. The train trip home is always good; full at Southern Cross station, the carriage slowly empties out at each stop - Lara, North Geelong, Geelong, South Geelong, Marshall, Winchelsea, Birregurra, Colac, Camperdown and Terang - so by the last hour to Warrnambool, there are only a handful of sleepy people left. I did all but two clues of the cryptic crossword.
Such an odd day: get up too early, sit too long, walk around for too long, then sit too long to get home again. Back home well after ten, I was met by an irate pink cat sitting next to an empty food bowl, even though I had put extra food down for the day. Finally, I sat down on the sofa next to Miss Pink, now fed and happily curled round her re-warmed heat pack, and poked my sore toe. Some pus popped out from under the toe nail.
So that was my day.
Finally, if you were to head to the rather excellent cover song blog, Fong Songs, you would find a week's worth of posts of Muppet covers. And who wouldn't want that?